Catholic Vitamin F: Frontline

Well, if you haven’t had a chance to listen, our guest is a wonderfully beautiful woman — beautiful in so many ways. She’s a photojournalist who start photographing images of our Blessed Mother Mary. She found out there were stories to be told. And this led to Cheri Lomonte’s writing a book: HEALING TOUCH OF MARY. That led to a radio show — devoted solely to the Blessed Mother, and so you can see that Cheri is a beautiful spiritual woman who loves sharing her faith and her love of Mary.

But wait – there’s more. Just years ago, Cheri discovered that there aren’t enough military chaplains, and that meant if was sometimes months before our men and women serving in the military forces have a Mass or a Protestant worship service. The Holy Spirit must have been active again with Cheri because she founded the FRONTLINE FAITH PROJECT.

We borrowed some information from Cheri’s website and from other places. Here’s great background and reason why we recommend our listeners consider a charitable donation of at least $24 to this wonderful project for our military forces.

AUSTIN, Texas, June 18, 2012 – More than two-thirds of America’s active-duty service men and women are Christian, and FRONTLINE FAITH has an MP3 player loaded with prayers and inspiration for every one of them. The organization honors every request it receives for an MP3 player, providing them free of charge to soldiers of all Christian faiths.“I want every military person to know how grateful Americans are for our troops and the place they hold in our hearts,” said FRONTLINE FAITH Founder and Director Cheri Lomonte. “Thank you for defending our religious liberty and all that we hold dear.”

FRONTLINE FAITH produces MP3 players packed with prayers and inspirational material for Catholics and Protestants. Each programming package includes features exclusive to its target audience (Catholic or Protestant) and common features that include letters from children and inspirational music. Catholics will find a full Mass recorded at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.; Rosary meditations; and a variety of prayers. Protestants will find faith-filled commentaries and messages from pastors, chaplains and troops.With America on the cusp of July 4, our Independence Day set aside to honor and celebrate the precious freedom U.S. troops defend 24/7 and around the world, FRONTLINE FAITH continues to work tirelessly to produce and distribute thousands of MP3 players. And while the impact has been significant, Lomonte knows there is still much to do.

“Our troops tell me they are STARVING for spiritual support,” she said. “We must feed those who protect our country and our gift of liberty. The MP3 players are food for the souls of our military. I want to put a player in the hands of all those who protect us.”

The task is daunting. Consider the following numbers from the Department of Defense, reflecting active-duty troops through Jan. 31, 2012:

• More than 272,000 identify as Roman Catholic
• More than 322,000 identify as Christians without a denomination preference
• More than 151,000 identify as members of a Baptist church“Those are among the largest numbers in the DOD report,” Lomonte said, “and they alone represent more than half of all active-duty military. “When we add all of the numbers together, the total Christian base represents more than two-thirds of our military forces.

“When I receive emails from our military thanking us for the players we send to them, and what the players mean to them, I am humbled and blessed and I feel very small compared to what they are doing for me and our country,” she added.

Lomonte incorporated FRONTLINE FAITH as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 2009 after learning that a large number of American soldiers deployed overseas sometimes go extraordinary amounts of time without access to a chaplain or religious services.

“We are all in this together,” Lomonte said. “So when one of us hurts, we all hurt. Our troops need our spiritual support. It is our duty to help our troops with prayer and players.”
That duty – helping – can take a variety of forms:

Donating as little as $24 to produce and distribute a FRONTLINE FAITH MP3 player;
• Sharing news of the project in church communities to help spread the word about FRONTLINE FAITH;
• Sharing personal stories from the front, or those of family members deployed;
• Connecting FRONTLINE FAITH to online social communities:
o Like and share the FRONTLINE FAITH on Facebook
o Follow FRONTLINE FAITH on Twitter @FrontlineFaith.